


So Brave and Quiet

by KrisseyCrystal (AisukuriMuStudio)



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Morgana and Akira have a talk, November/December on, Spoilers for like the whole game, the night before the final day at the casino
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 15:56:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11405691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AisukuriMuStudio/pseuds/KrisseyCrystal
Summary: “And then for you, to have to somehow find the courage within yourself to walk into a situation where you know you may very well die…”“We…do that every day, Morgana,” Akira found himself mumbling.“Not like this, you don’t.” Morgana lifted his eyes to Akira’s and Akira couldn’t find it in himself to disagree.





	So Brave and Quiet

It was no wonder he couldn’t sleep.

After hours of tossing and turning restlessly, Akira Kurusu finally sat up and pushed his legs over the edge of his bed. His eyes slipped to the calendar on the wall with the date circled on it—today’s date—and the letters, “C.C.” written beneath in his own messy handwriting. Tired of the persistent and nagging ache in his chest, he sighed. His shoulders sagged, hands lying limp in his lap. All of the thoughts that had prevented him from resting as Morgana kept telling him he _should_ were relentless in their attack tonight, it seemed.  

Akira couldn’t help but wonder if he should be more afraid.

It didn’t quite feel real, to know that someone was planning your death soon. To know that maybe on someone else’s calendar, maybe even within the same city limits of Tokyo (who knew where Goro Akechi really lived?), they, too, had a particular day in November circled. But instead of a note of reminder for a calling card to be sent, it was some kind of shorthand for, “ _Hey, remember that Akira Kurusu guy? Yeah, don’t forget to murder him today.”_

It was a thought he couldn’t get rid of and each time it circled back around to the forefront of his mind, Akira noticed that the tone got darker and snarkier. He reached up with his fingers to push up his glasses and pinch the bridge of his nose. He sighed again.

Ryuji was rubbing off on him.

“Oh. You too?”

Akira blinked and lifted his gaze to the stairway at the far end of his room, where Morgana stood with his tail gently swishing from side to side. Akira remembered reading somewhere that when cats got agitated or anxious, their tails would move far more frequently than it did when they were calm or happy. At the time, he had thought, _Huh. That’s the opposite of dogs._ Now, he wondered just how nervous Morgana was about the next couple days, too, if even he couldn’t keep still.

Would Morgana miss him, if everything failed and Akechi succeeded in killing him?

Morgana padded over and hopped onto the mattress beside his friend. He sat, tail still moving back and forth and back and forth against the mattress, as he peered up with those knowing blue eyes.

“I know it’s hard to sleep, Akira, but you really do need your rest,” Morgana murmured. “Tomorrow is going to be super important, after all.”

Akira nodded. But even so, he couldn’t bring himself to move. Lying down again wouldn’t ease the tension in his chest that now was more annoying than anything else. He brought up a hand to rub right at the space under his collarbone, wondering if that would ease the continual ache, but like everything else he’s tried, it did nothing.

Morgana sighed. He lowered his body until his chin was lying on top of Akira’s thigh—a small, soft comfort.

His voice, when he finally spoke, was just as quiet.

“I know,” he confessed. “I can’t sleep either. I tried walking around the block. I even went to Sojiro and Futaba’s house, but it’s not making me anymore tired.”

Akira nodded.

“Futaba’s light is on in her room, by the way,” Morgana murmured and that drew Akira’s attention to him. “I think she’s pretty nervous, too.”

“We all are, I think,” Akira said. He wondered if he texted the group, if all of them would respond, revealing that they were all suffering from the same insomnia as he was. But he didn’t. For some odd reason, his hands continued to lie limp in his lap, good for nothing but just lying still, it seemed.

Silence lingered.

Then, Morgana murmured, “I can’t help but think you’re all…too young for this,” and suddenly, magically something eased in Akira’s chest.

It was like a little candle had been lit in the back of his heart and mind that whispered, _ah yes, that’s it,_ and drew away some of the shadows that had started to grow heavy inside himself. His eyes drew downward to his friend as Morgana continued, “Being forced to scheme such an elaborate plan, all to save a friend’s life.” The cat sighed.

It did not escape Akira’s notice that as he talked, Morgana’s tail slowed its swinging until it came to a rest loosely wrapped around his frame. “And then for you, to have to somehow find the courage within yourself to walk into a situation where you know you may very well _die_ …”

“We…do that every day, Morgana,” Akira found himself mumbling.

“Not like this, you don’t.” Morgana lifted his eyes to Akira’s and Akira couldn’t find it in himself to disagree.

Yes…this shouldn’t have to happen, should it?

Morgana continued, and his eyes fell again. “Is it…bad that I think the same thing about Akechi, too?”

Akira shook his head and shifted a little. Morgana let him, unmoving from his place leaning against the young man’s leg. He continued. “Isn’t he too young, too, to be planning someone else’s murder? To be involved with something like all these mental shutdowns and deaths…”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Akira confided.

Morgana made a small sound in relief that resembled a purr. “Yeah.”

There was a strange relief in that thought, that idea. That they were too young for the trials that were being forced upon them. That no, in a _better_ world, in some _right_ and _good_ world out there, they wouldn’t have to deal with this. That he wouldn’t have to wake up to a morning where he had to tell himself, “Well, let’s hope I don’t get killed today,” and his friends didn’t have to rise and say, “Well, let’s hope we manage to save Akira today,” and that they could all just live normal and happy lives where their biggest worries were upcoming exams and _Ryuji, no, we’ve been to that ramen place twice already this week!_

It was perhaps a bit escapist and maybe a bit pathetic, but it was cathartic. It was soothing.

Akira breathed in and out, nice and long and slow. He could feel Morgana mirror him against his leg, small chest and small lungs rising and falling.

That too, was oddly soothing.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter now,” Morgana muttered. “We’ve got a task ahead of us that’s more important than any other mission we’ve done so far. This is the life we have and the world we’re in, so I guess we’d better live it to the best of our abilities, huh?”

Morgana lifted his eyes to Akira’s again. “We _will_ make this work, Akira. Remember that, okay?”

And this time, as he spoke, there was something else in Morgana’s voice. Something different, almost ancient, like the words he was speaking were plucked from a volume that had been tucked away in the depths of his mind, and now were dusted off and brought forward just for _this specific_ purpose.

“Even when things get really hard and really scary, remember that we’re not going to let you die. No matter what. So tomorrow, when you put on your mask and straighten out your coat, remember you gotta be strong. Remember to keep your shoulders straight and your head held high, because Akechi can’t know a single thing. You got that? That’s the only way this will work, if—even though you should never even have to—you march right towards Death with the biggest bluff of your _life._ You’ve got all our cards up your sleeve, so now you just gotta poker-face your way through it. You gotta fool it. More than anything else, you _have_ to remember to do that. Okay?”

Akira thought of a small prison and black-and-white garbs with shackles around his wrists as Morgana spoke. He thought of a round rug and two blonde girls and a long-nosed man tapping his fingers against a desk in a room clothed in velvet. And he couldn’t help but think that you know, somewhere in that space between dream and reality, mind and matter—Igor was probably smiling.

The Fool fooling Death, huh?

Akira hummed quietly. He nodded. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I won’t forget.”

* * *

The next day, Akira pocketed his phone. His eyes looked up to survey the walkway leading up to the casino as his red-gloved hands sat in his pockets. He looked somber like this, somehow; brave.

But not resigned.

Morgana had thought the young man would look back before they set off. If he had, he wouldn’t have blamed him. It would have been human to need a glance of support, or a reassuring look or reminder that someone, anyone, had your back as you walked to meet your fate.

But to Akira’s credit, he didn’t. He stood tall, his gaze set forward.

The day after that, Akira Kurusu stared Death straight in the face.

It was Death who blinked first.

**Author's Note:**

> "You are **so brave and quiet,** I forgot you were suffering." - Ernest Hemingway
> 
> I feel like this quote embodies Akira, y'kno.
> 
> Anyway, I was filled with Emotions as I got to November 18th in the game, because like how is Akira so chill? Like, all the time?? Especially when he knows he's going to be arrested (again), that someone's gonna try to kill him, and that if something went wrong or someone failed, he really would die and that was that. How does the guy keep going forward even when he _knows_ what's coming?
> 
> Idk, man. Nerves of steel, this kid.


End file.
